Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Cassie's Journal - April 5, 2016

The Ridge River Raiders Marching band is
born today!

We had a great turnout for our first
practice, with sixty-three musicians and fourteen teens – mostly girls – for the
color guard.That also included a few
van loads of teens from Maple Valley; and they’re just as fired up as we are –
since they’ve never had a marching band at their school either.

Our practice started out with a meeting
that included handing out the forms for the fruit and vegetable boxes promotion
that starts today too; along with a chat about everything else that we need to
deal with right away – whether that’s ordering uniforms or getting volunteers
signed up for some of the other fundraisers that’ll be coming up over the next
two months.Since Michael and I were in
on all of the planning for that, it wasn’t news for us; but we were drafted to
help out – including modeling or showing the different uniform options.We had all of that out of the way within a
half hour; and then moved on to the real practice – which for tonight was all
about learning to march.If you’ve never
done that as part of a large group, that probably sounds very simple, but while
basic marching is easy-enough; getting seventy or eighty teens to do that in
unison is another matter.Since we also
plan on moving well-beyond basic marching; we have our work cut out for us.

For a first practice, the marching went
well-enough; though that wasn’t exactly exciting for me.Michael and I did have fun together, and
while we were with the rest of the saxophone players while doing that; it was
great getting to hang out with our friends too.That included Tim, since there was no way he was going to miss out on a
trip to Florida while Rowen would be going there.He’ll likely end up as a third or fourth-part
trumpet player, since there are some really good players from both schools; but
that’ll just make it easier for him to keep up with the marching band in
addition to his football priority starting this summer and into the fall.

Tim is far from the only teen interested in
the marching band for the trip – and that includes Rebecca, Lucas, and
Jenny.Lucas will be playing percussion;
while Rebecca and Jenny will lead the color guard.Most of the Maple Valley students are more
serious musicians, since they’ve needed to get teacher approval to join, but I’m
glad of that; since we need the extra good musicians to make sure we’re
good-enough for a Disney parade.We’ll
start working on the music next week along with ongoing marching practices; but
all we did today was hand out the music so that everyone can start learning it where
that’s an option.We’ll still need to
work out quite a few of the placements – particularly with percussion players;
but we’ll start in on that next week too when we split up for first section
practices.I’ll write more about that
next week, but most of those small group practices will be student-led; and
most of those student-leaders have already been chosen.

There isn’t much else to report from
marching band practice, so let’s do a quick review of the rest of my day and
then I’m going to crash and get started on my nap.

Tai Chi was by the river today; and I was
glad to be out there again.We’ve had a
dash or two of rain; but most of the wet didn’t get here until I was home and
in bed for the night – even if that hasn’t included any sleeping yet.The rest of my morning was fairly normal; we
were able to be outdoors for lunch; and the weather was just about perfect for
our marching band practice.Michael,
Rowen, and I had our concert band practice first; moved straight into the
marching band practice after that with only enough time to eat a quick sandwich
and have a drink on our way outside.Our
teen praise team practice is being pushed back an hour to allow for our
marching band practice – at least for now; but Michael and I – and most of the
other members of the praise team – needed to go straight from the school to the
church.That’s going to be a lot of
music every Tuesday night for us, but it’ll be worth all of the work!

On the not so great side of things, Michael
and I still had our homework to do once we were finished that last practice; so
he came back to my house to do that – and so we could get some more food
too.Add in a bedtime chat with my
parents, Ethan, and Ehlana while we ate and studied; and a Magi lesson with Mom
because she could do that while we were together; and my ‘real’ work and
studying didn’t even get started until a bit after eleven-thirty.

That was also after I took care of getting
Ethan and Ehlana tucked in for the night once I’d seen Michael out and on his
way home; and I multi-tasked the first part of the work with some Jacuzzi time
because I was seriously in need of a soak in the tub by then.I could have fallen asleep in the tub, but
resisted the urge; kept working; and then got out of the tub and ready for bed
when I started to get too tempted to forget about the work and go to sleep
anyway.Maybe I should have done that,
but it just makes things harder when I have to play catch-up; so I’m glad that
I didn’t – even if the extra sleep would have been really nice.

I’ll have to settle for some self-healing
in the morning, but it is our mid-week work night up next; so I might be able
to get ahead of the game and even head off to bed early for the next night – or
even two if I skip game night again and work at home instead on Thursday night.

That sounds like a great plan.I’ll let you know how that works out for me,
but that’s all for tonight; so, until next time...